Iraq's Finance Ministry obstructs sending salaries to Kurdistan Region under false pretexts, says KRG senior official

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In an exclusive with Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday, the spokesperson of Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Finance and Economy Hunar Jamal,  announced that the KRG’s Ministry of Finance and Economy is yet to receive a formal directive from either the Federal Supreme Court or Iraq’s Ministry of Finance. “That is why we cannot exactly say how to react to the decisions yet,” he said.

Regarding the civil servants bank account, the spokesperson highlighted that Kurdistan Region has already started the MyAccount initiative, and “so far, there are more than 200 thousand civil servants registered.”

Read more: Nearly 190,000 civil servants registered to MyAccount: KRG

The initiative has covered almost all of the civil servants in Erbil, with Dohuk and Sulaimani being the next phase of the initiative. This comes at the time that the Iraqi Ministry of Finance has asked the Kurdistan Region to open new bank accounts for the civil servants.

Read more: KRG’s MyAccount initiative launched in Sulaimani, Duhok

“The MyAccount initiative does not oppose the Federal Supreme Court verdict, since the participating banks in this initiative in Kurdistan Region are already licensed by the Central Bank of Iraq, and they have the approval of the Central Bank to join the initiative,” the spox clarified.

Mr. Jamal also underlined that ever since 2016, the Iraqi Government has been trying to open bank accounts, and 20 Iraqi banks have been in this process for eight years. “How could we finish the entire process for Kurdistan Region civil servants in just one month?” he asked.

The spokesperson of KRG’s Ministry of Finance and Economy suspects there might be another intention to this request of opening bank accounts from the Iraqi Government. He stated, “The request to open bank accounts only creates further problems. We have firsthand experience throughout the past few months. There have always been issues, and as soon as it is time for the Iraqi Government to transfer the money for the distribution of salaries, the Iraq’ Ministry of Finance starts giving excuses and creates hurdles and eventually causes delay for the process.”

“They have never tired of creating hurdles and obstacles for the Kurdistan Region. I would like everyone to understand this clearly,” he stated.

Ever since the start of the 9th cabinet in Kurdistan Region in 2019, there has been a federal budget law for three years, and for two years other relevant laws have been enforced. “During these five years, the Iraqi Government had to allocate 59 trillion and 29 billion Iraqi dinars as part of the budget share of Kurdistan Region. However, we have only received 13 trillion and 401 billion in total, part of which is given as loans. As a result, for the past five years, Kurdistan Region has only received 22.7% of its rightful budget,” he explained further.

The pilot project will be finalized in 2025 with the goal of integrating all civil servants into the digital payment system.

The government’s Department of Information Technology (DIT) designed, tested, piloted, and implemented a secure application for onboarding KRG employees into the program in line with the Central Bank of Iraq’s Know-Your-Customer (KYC) needs, according to a press release previously shared with Kurdistan 24.

It is believed that there are four banks offering services for the program: Ashur, BBAC, Cihan, and RT.